what more than all things else in the universe concerns them. It is in regard to the possession of this attribute especially that the mere remembrance of her whose remains lie here, with the image in our mind's eye of what she was when in joyful innocence she walked amongst us, makes, to use the expression of our great dramatist,

"This vault a feasting presence full of light."

For of every thing great and good of which humanity is capable this faith is the source and principle, rendering each person who is animated by it "a theme of honour and renown, a spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds;" and without it, where malice is not called into operation, there is nothing but inaction, depths calling upon depths, and darkness at the end of all. "Faith," says a French writer, "when existing in great men, great writers and poets, as viewed at a certain point of their career, renders them like rivers wide beyond all visible bounds at their mouths. All know them and they know all. Their glory is a thing like common-place. Oh! I do love," he continues, "faith higher up its channel, nearer its source, almost unknown, unvisited; when its course is mysterious, and so confined that two old willows leaning across from the opposite banks can mingle together their branches and serve it for a cradle." It is in this obscure and tranquil form so far removed from public haunts that we are now to view it. When studying the woman of faith, of the Credo, of the love of God and of His Church, eke out our performance with your mind, and methinks you are about to see the living person. But start not, my spell is lawful: do not shun her; she is soft as infancy and grace.

The subject, as already observed, may be said to abound with curious instructive meaning now, even in an historical and literary point of view; for here, by merely beholding one woman's faith, you might have been taught how to read the ancient Christian annals which record the results of that of whole generations. Here you had old history in a young heart; instead of ages, only years of faith in one existence. What more curious study, what more useful even to a student of history? "Would you know," asks the poet, dropping a

hint that ought not to be lost on the historian, "the manners of an age? study with care one family,-' sufficit una domus.' Here the domestica facta furnished a mirror and a clue to history.

Nay, you might find light thrown by means of her example upon even the municipal customs of London in former times, as where you read in the Liber Albus how the mayor and aldermen on certain days, and at a particular spot in St. Paul's church, used to pray for the soul of Bishop William, "who, by his entreaties, obtained from William the Conqueror great liberties for the City of London, the priest repeating the De profundis; and how careful the mayor and aldermen showed themselves on a certain occasion at the sale of houses to provide for divine service to be celebrated for the souls of certain testators of the remaining monies over and above only, after founding the chantry, to be paid towards the repairs of London bridge." In her you behold that solicitude for all the faithful departed which so profoundly characterized those ages.

In her, not to anticipate what must be stated later, you behold at least a certain adumbration of the character of those holy women and generous patricians, the Marcellas, Paulas, Fabiolas, and Melanies, described in the immortal pages of St. Jerome; or rather, fearing to contemplate the details of that antique grandeur, and descending to ages in which the details of life have necessarily a greater resemblance to those of our own times, here we can observe in what was but yesterday daily done and spoken, the domestic manners of which the tradition is transmitted to us by the Bollandists. In her you witnessed the very spirit which animated the municipal corporations of the thirteenth century, when, as we find from Stephen Boileau's Livre des Métiers, and from the Liber Albus of the City of London, the motive for many enactments was declared officially to be "the pleasing of God, and the salvation of souls." As Montaigne says of L'Hopital, you will often be induced to exclaim, while fixing your regard on some fresh distinctive trait, "Belle âme, riche de vertus et marquée à l'antique marque." In fact, she seemed to expect to live surrounded as if born in ages of faith with manly virtue at the side of holiness; or, as Montalembert expresses it, amidst heroes

elbowing saints *. Calmly and dispassionately judging, you will be convinced that she was the living expression of the ancient Christian society as represented by St. Cyprian, and as distinguished from the pagan. With her all was complete and fixed, -what one must believe-what one must say and do. No fables, nothing equivocal, no myths; serious and sweet, the unity of her character answering to the unity of her thoughts the whole moral theory simply exposed, precepts for all situations, encouragement for every one,-instead of amusing sophisms sparkling like nocturnal lights upon a tomb, luminous instructions shining like an aureole upon a cradle †.

It is but the plain unvarnished statement of a fact, to say that she comprised in herself the most noble traces of former ages, and of ideas that in the sphere of her ordinary life have nearly disappeared. In her you witnessed what reigned with such vitality in past ages, that sole force which is truly worthy of respect-force of soul excluding weakness and baseness, which constituted precisely, as a great writer says, "what was most unknown to those times." No, no, she must not be forgotten; a whole world sleeps with her.

But look only at the literary interest. The Ménagier de Paris, for instance, written in the time of St. Louis, seems drawn up expressly to paint her individual mind and manners. When the great poet Luis de Leon, too, composed his book on the perfect wife, it is her that you might fancy he must have had constantly in view. Of many other old curious books of portraits it might be truly said, O sweet holy picture! and thee, Jane Mary, which of the two has imitated the other? But how can one describe the beautiful varied imagery, the antique, exquisite miniatures presented here? In her you found what is written by M. Monteil in his history of ancient manners; all that he collected in parchment scrolls, and in the dust of forty thousand houses with towers and battlements, you saw not in separate fragments, but living and united in her. How often does it happen now that old monuments, vestiges of

* Moines d'occident, i. 27.

+ Philarète Chasles, Études sur les premiers Temps des Christianisme.

ancient times of Christianity, seem to want an interpreter ! Well, if you visited them in her company you did not experience that need. Montalembert mentions his having found over the gate of one of the dependencies of the abbey of Morimondo, near Milan, near a farm-house called Casina Cantaluco di Ozero, on the side of the wood from Abbiate Grasso to Pavia, these words: "Entra, o passaggiere ! e prega Maria Madre di grazia." How one seems to have before one's eyes, when reading these lines, Jane Mary, not to explain them herself, but to enable you to explain them by beholding her heart kindled by the invitation contained in those sweet words! "In our contemporaries," says Saint-Beuve, "we like sometimes to search for certain traits of character that seem to belong to preceding ages; and we would wish to see them in their true light as referable to certain social epochs. This kind of supposition, when not overstrained, has its advantages. It is like a picture that one sees better by looking at it from different points, nearer or more distant." If we found that she whom we are about to delineate was of the seventeenth century by her solid qualities of mind and disposition, we might discover that by her faith her place would be found rather in more remote antiquity. It is like a saint of the middle ages, that appears to us, a saint of the thirteenth century, or even of the primitive Church, and of the holy women that entombed our Lord. In her instincts, in her tastes, in her inclinations, in her appreciations, in her judgments, in her language, you might have read the spirit and manners of Christian history, the part of cruelty and intolerance alone left out; for she seemed to know of what spirit we are; yet she was eminently of her own times, by her charity and her admirable good sense hostile to whatever is paradoxical and absurd. In point of fact, asking indulgence for the allusion, which I fear may be hardly pardonable, if there be any thing of life in certain works professing to contain monuments of the ages of faith, and to show the Meeting of the Ways at the central focus of the Catholic Church, their author owes the advantage almost entirely to her. Not alone did a rude sketch of her character, inserted in the fourth chapter of the first book of the latter work, constitute its purest page; but, all through both these compilations and compositions, without pre

meditation, the whole was conceived and moulded so as to exemplify what was actually seen and heard in her; for each passage was unconsciously selected with a view to its striking conformity with what she admired, and prescribed, and practised, and enforced by the lustre of her sweet example.

It would detain us too long were we to give here a detailed account of the varied manner in which this lively genuine faith operated, as its development in action will constitute the theme of this entire book. Let it suffice, for the present, to observe a few general instances, and to express them without reference to details. As we read of Mme. de Montmorency, "prosperity did not puff her up, nor misfortunes discourage her; for, to use the old language of Alain Chartier, le mespris de Dieu rend l'homme subjet et serf à toutes choses: so, for a contrary reason, her moral courage was great; and her heart, always firm and equable in its movements, was ever fixed on God as the true glory and happiness for ever*." Like the Countess of Richmond, as described by Bishop Fisher, "to God and to the chirche full obedient and tractable serchynge his honour and pleasure full besyly. Fryvelous thyngs that were lytell to be regarded she wold let pass by, but the other that were of weyght and substance wherein she myght proufyte, she wolde not let for any payne or labour to take upon hande." This courage and activity in one who, in other respects, was nervous and diffident to an extreme, were assuredly remarkable; for, no question, she verified the remark that virtue is bold and goodness never fearful; but God was her retreat and her strength. That is why she would not fear though the mountains were thrown into the sea, or the heavens troubled. Her mind was ever at rest. She had no curiosity to hear about the wonders of philosophers-respecting magnetism and mediums, like those who consult such Humes as Shakspeare speaks of. She avoided all discourse about them, and seemed unwilling to think that such things even needed explanation. Her heart was ever set upon the salvation of all, who from any errors of opinion came within the sphere of her influence. Too well acquainted with their general answers, as ready as your borrower's caps, she was

* Vie de Mme. de Montmorency.